Nancy Meyers: Films provide personal payoff

Comedy Impact Report 2010: Bigscreen Bigshots

For Nancy Meyers, it seems making hit comedies isn’t all that complicated: She just writes what she knows.

Meyers, who divorced her husband in 1998, penned and directed what is perhaps her most personal work yet with “It’s Complicated,” and getting personal paid off: The film grossed $225 million worldwide and garnered three Golden Globe nominations.

“It’s best for me to tap into the things I know,” Meyers says. “You’re married for a certain amount of time, but you’re divorced forever. It has a real profound effect on everybody.”

Film by film, Meyers is proving that romance and romantic comedies aren’t just for the young at heart. “It’s Complicated” fit the mold of Meyers’ hit 2003 film “Something’s Gotta Give”: Both feature big-name thesps as characters who find love later in life. Meyers says the key to appealing to audiences is making that love real and relatable. “People probably have fun laughing at themselves in a way,” she says. “I think there is that thing that divorced people think: ‘I wonder if we got back together, you know, 10 years later, if we’d have a shot.’ So I examined that, and some of that turns out to be funny.”